Political Economy of the Environment ECO 760

2018 Spring Term

Political Economy of the Environment ECO 760

Time: Tuesdays from 6:00-8:00 PM

Location: Anthropology's conference room 9.63.24.

Instructor: Dr. Christian Parenti

Office hours: 5pm to 6pm Tuesdays, or by appointment
Office 9.63.35 Economics Department, New Building

Email:

Tel. (347) 350-0881

Course Overview

This course analyzes the economic and environmental history of capitalism at the global scale as it has developed over at least the last five centuries, albeit through different paths in different geographies. The perspective of the course is thus both historical and comparative. The course will unpack the larger global dynamics and integrate them through a detailed comparison of specific country-level case studies.

In this class, capitalism is treated not simply as an economic and social system but also as an ecological regime: a system of organizing and continually re-organizing nature. In other words, the course builds on the premise that the history of capitalism can be read through environmental change. At the heart of this investigation is the question of social power: who has it, why and how is it used? How does nature shape social power, and how is it in turn shaped by nature?

The course will explore the origins and environmental consequences of the global North-South divide. This story reveals the deep history of the world economy’s environmental crisis and the various spatial displacements of crisis that were part of the process of European imperial expansion. Special attention will be paid to state formation, war, imperialism, technology, energy, environmental change, economic crisis, and “long waves of accumulation.” It focuses on post-World War II developments such as the rise of Keynesianism on the global scale, the role of socialist economies, the economic aspects of the Cold War, “developmentalism” in the global South, the global crisis of profitability in the 1970s, and the resultant political economic restructuring known as “neoliberalism.”

This course also looks at the political economy and environmental politics of food and water, and investigates the landscapes they produce within the larger context of climate change. The course is based on the understanding that the ways in which we organize and produce natural resources –including those related to food and water— are always socially and historically constituted, through uneven, power-laden dynamics. The course thus looks at how and why certain ways of organizing and producing resources become dominant (while others become marginalized or excluded) with which uneven socio-economic impacts.

Course Objectives

To introduce students to the new environmental and economic history of global capitalism which sees nonhuman nature and geography as core elements in world economic history.
To provide an overview of modern economic history with the goal of close reading, summarization of key points, and argumentation from various perspectives.
To trace the origins, trajectory, and internal dynamics of capitalism, particularly in the regions of target countries.
To explore major theories of why the world is divided between developed core economies and less-developed peripheral economies
To evaluate the role of the state within development of capitalism and its evolving role in environmental policy.
To examine the roles of labor and nature within the production of economic value.

Learning Outcomes

To demonstrate knowledge of historical events in the modern era, including an understanding of the causal relationships between/among historical events, and the ability to develop a thesis based on historical evidence.
To articulate the major theoretical schools of political economy that emerged in response to historical events.
To interpret historical evidence from primary and/or secondary sources.
To apply historical knowledge and interpretation toward the analysis of current events, and to understand connections between history and other disciplines.

Course Requirements

Readings

Careful reading of the assigned materials, which are the product of a rigorous process of selection, is obligatory. The reading list has both required and recommended/optional readings which are designed to help students with presentations, essays, and participation, for which they will be graded. It is strongly encouraged that the students keep up with the readings as their papers and participation will be notably affected and they will be graded accordingly otherwise.

Attendance and Participation (50%)

All students are expected to be present at every program session, only exceptions being illness. Unexcused absences and habitual lateness will result in penalties reflected in your participation grade. Please inform the instructor if tardiness is anticipated. All students are expected to come to class on time.

Students are expected to participate actively in faculty sessions and to complete required readings beforehand. Needless to say, having done the readings on time is an indispensible component of class participation. Faculty sessions will be connected to and complemented by site visits and guest lectures in each city, as well as content from other courses. Participation is more than just showing up or speaking out; it means that you actively contribute to the intellectual growth of the group by thoughtfully engaging with both the readings and the comments of your fellow students.

The use of Blackberrys, iPhones, and laptops is not permitted in class sessions. The idea behind this policy is to guarantee an environment in which constant attention and concentration are maintained.

Course Requirements and Means of Evaluation:

The course requirements are comprised of: participation in class discussions and a final paper or take home final exam – you decide. Total page count on either should be around 10 to 12 pages double-spaced.

You must print out the online readings and bring them to class! We will do close examinations of the text in each class.

Grading

Your grade will be calculated as follows:

Class participation composes 50% of your final grade; the final paper or take-home exame is the other 50%.

In-class participation means: consistent attendance and regular, thoughtful, informed participation in discussions. Thus, it is not sufficient to simply “show up.” Discussion in this class is mandatory – even for people who are shy. (Try not be shy, life is too short!)

Remember, we are all in this together and it is incumbent on all of us to foster a group dynamic that allows everyone to learn and participate. Thus, manners and courtesy – crucial parts of professionalism – are expected and considered in calculating your class participation grade.

Two absences are allowed, but any absence above that knocks your final grade down by one-third, for example from A to an A-, or C+ to a C.

It is useful to think of letter grades in the following way: an “A” represents truly outstanding work that exemplifies thorough analysis, superior insight, and crystal clear presentation. A "B" signifies highly competent work that accomplishes the task at hand very well, through considerable thought, reasonable analysis, and an organized presentation. A "C" represents adequate work that meets basic requirements but demonstrates no distinction in terms of analytical insight or organization. A "D" is characterized by poorly or partially completed work that reflects a lack of initiative, inconsistent analysis, and/or erratic presentation. Plus and minus indicate relatively better or poorer work within each category. There is no A+.

A note on writing: When writing a paper, each paragraph of an essay –whether long or short— should have a topic sentence that lays out the main idea of the paragraph at the beginning, because organization and clarity are essential to the writing process. Although outlines will not be required, students are encouraged to write them, outlining the main idea in the introduction and restating it in the conclusion.

Essays without thematic ideas or arguments—those that lapse into mere narration or description, or whose arguments are buried within the text—will be graded in accordance with their low level of organization. The goal of each essay is to develop one or two general points, and to illustrate and substantiate them with examples from the assigned and recommended readings as well as supplemental research.

The point of an essay is to persuade your readers that you have found an exact fit between your argument and the evidence used to substantiate it. Remember: an essay is only as convincing as its arguments and evidence, and the tighter the fit between them, the more convincing the essay.

Plagiarism: It is imperative that you do not plagiarize when you write. Plagiarism is defined as follows: “The practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own.” Plagiarism can range from copying text to me really taking important ideas and using them without citing for referencing in any way their original source. To intentionally plagiarize can have extremely serious consequences on one’s education and later career. In the age of the Internet, when cutting and pasting text is a common practice while doing on-line research, plagiarism can happen inadvertently, by mistake. That does not lessen the seriousness of the problem. Even when committed innocently, in error, plagiarism is totally unacceptable and has major consequences.

As a student it is your responsibility to police your work to make sure you do not commit plagiarism.

Ethics. Please refer to the John Jay College Student handbook for policies on academic integrity, ethics, warning and probation, diversity and disability, sexual harassment and the academic appeals process.

READINGS

NB. Most, but not all, of the readings will also be available for free as PDFs

Books to buy:

Andreas Malm, Fossil Capitalism:

H. Bruce Franklin, The Most Important Fish in the Sea

Wenonah Hauter, Foodopoly: The Battle Over the Future of Food and Farming in America,

Timothy Mitchell, Carbon Democracy

Donald Woster, Dust Bowl,

Optional because you’ll have the PDF:

George Bataille, The Accursed Share,

C. Parenti Tropic of Chaos

Class 1 What is “Nature”?

Karl Marx, Capital Volume 1, “Part VIII: Primitive Accumulation,” Chaps 26, 27, 28, 29, and 30.

William Cronan, “The Trouble with Wilderness”

William Cronan, “Commodities of the Hunt.”

Class 2 Expenditure and the Metabolic Rift

George Bataille, The Accursed Share, Intro and first 4 chapters p., 1 to 77. This reading can be difficult, so don't get bogged down, try to extract the main ideas and let the other stuff just wash over you.

John Bellamy Foster, “The Metabolism of Nature and Society," Chapter 5 in Marx's Ecology.

Jason W. Moore “Nature and the Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism,” Fernand Braudel Center, Vol. 26, No. 2, Ecology of the Modern World-System (2003), pp. 126-160. (35 pages)

Class 3 Limits to Growth

Malthus, “Essay on Population,” Chapters 1, 2, 10, 16, 19.

Donella Meadows, Jorgen Randers, Dennis Meadows, chapters 1, 2, and 3, Limits to Growth: The 30 Year Update.

Optional:

Christian Parenti, ‘The Limits to Growth’: A Book That Launched a Movement,” The Nation, Dec. 5, 2012. (5 pages)

Class 4 Bison and The Comanche Empire

Geoff Cunfer and Bill Waiser, Bison and People on the North American Great Plains, pages 1-47.

Pekka Hamalainen, Comanchee Empire, chapters 4 and 5.

R. M. Morrissey, “Bison Algonquians: Cycles of Violence and Exploitation in the Mississippi Valley Borderlands,” Early American Studies (Spring 2015) .

Class 5 Tobacco, Meat, Soil, and Cities

David R. Montgomery, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations, Chapters 6 and 7.

William Cronan, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West, select chapters on meat industry.

Mark Essig, The Lesser Beasts, select chapters.

Class 6 the Environment Making State: War, Rivers, and Railroads

Christian Parenti, “Environment-Making in the Capitalocene: Political Ecology of the State,” in Jason W. Moore, ed., Anthropocene or Capitalocene?

Nature, History, and the Crisis of Capitalism (Oakland: PM Press, 2016)

Robert Gudmestad, Steamboats and the Rise of the Cotton Kingdom, select chapters.

Richard White, “spatial politics” chapter 4 Railroaded,

Class 7 Water vs. Coal

Andreas Malm, Fossil Capitalism: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming, “The Long Life of the Flow: Industrial Energy Before Coal,” “There are mighty energies in those masses: mobilizing power in a Time of crisis,” “Fleeing the Flowing Comments: The Expansion of Water Power that Never Happened,” and “A Ticket to the Town: Advantages of Steam in Space.” (Chapters 3, 4, 6, and 7).

Class 8 The Dust Bowl, the New Deal, and WWII

Donald Woster, Dust Bowl, select chapters. To be Purchased

Paul Conkin, Revolution Down on the Farm, select chapters. (PDF)

Class 9 From Coal to Oil

Christopher Jones, Routes of Power, Chapter 4, “Pipelines and Power.”

Timothy Mitchell, Carbon Democracy, Chapter 1 and 5, 7.

Class 10 The Cold War and the Green Revolution

Michael E. Latham, The Right Kind of Revolution: Modernization, Development, and U.S. Foreign Policy from the Cold War to the Present (Cornell University Press, 2011) Chapter Four, “Technocratic faith: from birth control to the green revolution”

Class 11 Menhaden Case Study

H. Bruce Franklin, The Most Important Fish in the Sea.

Class 12 Modern Food System

Wenonah Hauter, Foodopoly: The Battle Over the Future of Food and Farming in America, chapters 2 through 6. (136 pages total)

Wang Qinghua “Forest Management and Terraced Agriculture: Case Study of Hani of Ailao Mountains, Yunnan,” Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 36, No. 30 (Jul. 28 - Aug. 3, 2001), pp. 2846-2850.

Class 13 Finacialization

Class 14 Climate Change and Alternative Energy

Daniel Yergin, The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World, Chapter 11, 12, 27, and 29-33.

Christian Parenti, Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence, select chapters.

Class 15 TBA